Thomas Lux, RIP: 1946-2017

Refrigerator, 1957

More like a vault — you pull the handle out
and on the shelves: not a lot,
and what there is (a boiled potato
in a bag, a chicken carcass
under foil) looking dispirited,
drained, mugged. This is not
a place to go in hope or hunger.
But, just to the right of the middle
of the middle door shelf, on fire, a lit-from-within red,
heart red, sexual red, wet neon red,
shining red in their liquid, exotic,
aloof, slumming
in such company: a jar
of maraschino cherries. Three-quarters
full, fiery globes, like strippers
at a church social. Maraschino cherries, maraschino,
the only foreign word I knew. Not once
did I see these cherries employed: not
in a drink, nor on top
of a glob of ice cream,
or just pop one in your mouth. Not once.
The same jar there through an entire
childhood of dull dinners — bald meat,
pocked peas and, see above,
boiled potatoes. Maybe
they came over from the old country,
family heirlooms, or were status symbols
bought with a piece of the first paycheck
from a sweatshop,
which beat the pig farm in Bohemia,
handed down from my grandparents
to my parents
to be someday mine,
then my child’s?
They were beautiful
and, if I never ate one,
it was because I knew it might be missed
or because I knew it would not be replaced
and because you do not eat
that which rips your heart with joy.

Thomas Lux

I have followed the career of Thomas Lux with much pleasure. The details of his poems often give me that moment of keen memory mixed with desire and clarity: I too had it; the dull refrigerator where only the maraschino cherries glowed like beacons flaring on a dark road. Unlike Lux’s speaker, however, I did eat. He says: “you do not eat / that which rips your heart with joy.”

I could not resist and late one night removed one little cherrie from the glass jar. The top was difficult to remove: it had ossified into place. Under cover of a piece of toilet paper (the only disguiser I could find: a napkin would have been noticed) I took the small cherry up to my bedroom on the third-floor. There were no festivities in my house and I have no idea how the cherries made their way in. I slept in the former servants’s quarters. We had no money but we had a true barn of a Victorian home: the carriage house was huge, the servants’s quarters were perfect lodging for the children, and the dumbwaiter had to be locked up by my father after one too children got stuck in it. And the back stairs–plain, unornamented, cold–were the perfect place to hide.

Lux’s poem opens up a world of memory for me. I feel such kinship to the boy who was strong enough to resist the cherries. Read more of his poetry. You won’t regret it.

I know. I don’t think that idea that these cherries are indigestible and will live in your stomach forever had taken hold when I was young. How well I remember the few occasions when I was able to order a Shirley Temple. Magical moments! I wish that those moments were so easy to find nowadays.

I love the parallel between Lux’s experiences and your own childhood memories. And as with his oh-so-evocative phrases (“like strippers at a church social”!) your own stick in the mind, as when the cherries “glowed like beacons flaring on a dark road”. Wonderful. Me? Sadly, I never could stomach them — I found them too cloying for words.

Oh, my, how the memories come flooding back! We too had maraschino cherries in the refrigerator when I was a child. Like you, I don’t remember them ever being served with anything, but I do remember eating them. As an adult, the taste of amaretto liqueur reminds me of those cherries, too. Thank you for sharing both the poem and your childhood memories.

Shh... don't tell anyone I'm poor. They all think I'm living frugal and green just like everyone these days. This is a blog about a senior citizen living a frugal life, on a fixed income, in a low income food desert, and passing along knowledge from lessons learned. Some she learned from her Grandma Mama many years ago and some learned only a few days ago.

Shh... don't tell anyone I'm poor. They all think I'm living frugal and green just like everyone these days. This is a blog about a senior citizen living a frugal life, on a fixed income, in a low income food desert, and passing along knowledge from lessons learned. Some she learned from her Grandma Mama many years ago and some learned only a few days ago.